Telephone Operator (1937)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Scott Pembroke

Writers:

John W. Krafft (story)
Scott Darling (screenplay)

Release Date:

7 December 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

Suddenly...disaster struck at the happiness of these two lovers...as raging flood waters swept them into the dark terror of the night!

Plot:

A telephone operator covering for a friend's "fling" finds herself in the middle of a major disaster when the city is hit by a big flood and her switchboard is the center of communications. |

Plot Keywords:

Flood | Telephone | Disaster | Telephone Operator | Co Worker

Cast

Judith Allen	...	Helen Molly
Grant Withers	...	Red
Warren Hymer	...	Shorty
Alice White	...	Dottie Stengal
Ronnie Cosby	...	Ted Molloy (as Ronnie Cosbey)
Pat Flaherty	...	Tom Sommers
Greta Granstedt	...	Sylvia Sommers
William Haade	...	Heaver
Cornelius Keefe	...	Pat Campbell
Dorothy Vaughan	...	Mrs. Molloy

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Monogram Pictures Corporation

Flood Scenes

I lived through the great flood in the San Fernando Valley of 1937. I even have some 16 mm home movies that my dad took in the big flood basins that now have the flood control dams. As I see this movie, I see what may be scenes from the same disaster. After all, I am sure that the studios in the area had lots of cameramen out taking movies for possible, and here is one, movies that could use those background scenes. The city scenes could easily have been the streets in Van Nuys and the fast flowing water along the Los Angeles River, which at that time was not the pretty looking concrete channel that it is now in the 2000's. We even have a movie showing a Whippet automobile in the flooded area; we jokingly remark that it was a bigger car and that it had shrunk in the flood.